On his earliest work with Waves plugins, Pearlman notes: “I started working with Waves in 2008 and 2009 while on tour with Five Finger Death Punch. I had a few plugins on the console, and I had seen my peers such as Greg Price, Ken “Pooch” Van Druten and Brad Madix using them, getting great results and redefining how we mix. Then I did an Ozzy Osbourne tour with Greg Price as FOH, and at that point I was hooked. I had full access to Greg as he was mixing, and I had access to his Waves plugins as well. That was the game changer, and I went on to watch all the tutorials and read everything on WavesLive.”

He adds, “When I took over mixing the Stone Temple Pilots, I was told we were using a Soundcraft VI3000, which was a gift from Live Nation for the tour. The band was very specific about how they wanted to sound. The first thing was finding out how to add Waves plugins to the gig. Pooch was talking to the band about audio. Thanks to Pooch, the problem was solved! A DiGiGrid MGO optical MADI-to-SoundGrid interface and a SoundGrid DSP Server were everything I needed for my show. My desk then had the capability to get the band sounding like it needed to, including easy setup and reliability—unfailingly every night.”